In the India-Bangladesh ODI World Cup 2019 game on 2 July 2019 at Birmingham, Rohit Sharma, who was hailed by the great Virat Kohli as the greatest ever One Day player currently, got a life. When Rohit Sharma was batting on 9 runs when offered a “dolly of a catch”. The Bangladeshi fielder who got under it was Tamin Iqbal. But despite using both his hands, he dropped it. If I was on air giving commentary for that game I would have used one of my favorite commentary lines at that point which is this: “Even my mother-in-law could have caught that one!” Jokes apart, Rohit continued to thrive after that reprieve. He scored his fourth ton of the 2019 World Cup. His partnership of 180 with K.L. Rahul (another Rohit in the making, in my opinion, with the same classiness) had laid for India a solid foundation to score even a possible 400 when they batted first. It was not the first time that Rohit made India’s opponents pay for “giving him grace” by dropping the catches he offered them. One Twitter user put out this tweet immediately: “Dropped on 1 vs SA: Scored 122. Dropped on 2 vs AUS: Scored 57. Dropped on 4 vs ENG: Scored 104.” Yes, Rohit Sharma when shown grace responds with gratitude – the gratitude of accumulating runs for his team.
As believers we are saved by grace of our Lord Jesus who died for us on the Cross. But do we respond with gratitude for the grace that shown to us by exhibiting good works? Apostle Paul wrote some classic stuff in the book of Ephesians talking about this very thing. He wrote that God was “rich in mercy” towards us (Eph. 2:4). So, that is why we too ought to be “full of mercy” in our dealings with others as the proverbs in the New Testament, the book of James tells us (James 3:17). Over to Apostle Paul who makes this crystal clear: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:8-10).There is an unwarranted tirade going against “good works”/ “works of the law” – thanks to the efforts of the cunning preachers of the cultic hyper-grace movement. They know the Bible is clear when it calls believers who are saved by grace to do good works moved by gratitude (as it is evident from the passage above and several other passages such as Leviticus 11:45/Hosea 3/Zechariah 3:3-7/Titus 2:11-12/Titus 3:4-8/2 Timothy 1:9/Romans 6:4/I Thessalonians 2:13/4:3-5. In Chapter 5 of my book, Straight Talk On Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn and More, I explain this in greater detail). Despite knowing this, the hyper-grace cult teachers make a brazen attempt to confuse believers into believing that a believer should not be concerned about “works” because we are “saved by grace”. But a careful study of the New Testament reveals that “good works” of holiness and ministry and “works of the law” are vastly different. While both cannot save us, the Bible is clear we must do “good works” (moved by gratitude for the grace shown us) while only shunning the “works of the law”. What is this “works of the law”? The writer to the Hebrews explains they are the animal sacrifices, ceremonial laws of the Old Testament which we no longer need to break our heads with as Christ has offered the perfect sacrifice (Heb. 8:13 and I would recommend a full reading of the book). Even in the book of Hebrews we are told of the need to do the “good works” (of holiness). We read in the same book this: “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Heb. 13:4). This is just another way of repeated one of the 10 commandments which went this way: “Do not commit adultery.” So, the moral, non-ceremonial laws of the Old Testament are still binding on us, believers. We do not follow them to earn our salvation, but because we are saved, out of gratitude, we obey them! If we do not obey them, then as my Calvinist friends tell me, their Armenian friend this: “We must doubt if those who do not do the good works of holiness are really saved in the first place after reading passages such as I John 2:3-5!”
(Duke Jeyaraj is the founder of Grabbing the Google Generation from Gehenna Mission, the G4 Mission, a reader-supported Indian ministry. Find out more at www.dukev.org. Read Duke’s writings at www.dukewords.com.)